Sunday, June 2, 2013

Some Oakland Airport Food Chains Resist Living Wage Law

OAKLAND AIRPORT//LABOR | Earlier this year, investigators for the Port of Oakland determined that some businesses at Oakland International Airport had violated the port's living wage ordinance and had retaliated against employees who had complained. However, as of last week, those businesses had refused to reinstate fired employees or pay them the money they're owed, according to activists for the union Unite Here.

The Express first reported last year about the union's battle with the airport employers and the allegations that the businesses were not paying high-enough wages under port regulations and had failed to provide overtime pay and paid time off. Originally, employees made allegations of wrongdoing against four companies: J.R. Lester & Associates, which operates a See's Candy and an Auntie Anne's outlet at the airport; Almison Restaurants, which operates a Burger King; NNF Grewals LLC, which runs a Subway; and CMC Services, which operates a Jamba Juice franchise...

2 comments:

There are plenty of laws out there, however usually they are not enforced. And a lot of the people I know well have worked in the food service business, a business that is one of the worst offenders in wage theft. So to give just a few examples.

For instance, one person I know used to work in a restaurant in which a manager decided the restaurant could reduce by expenses by having the employees punch their timecards to check out before they were actually finished working, and the employees were then expected to continue working after having already punched out. Of course the manager told the employees that verbally and did not dare to put it in writing.

And then there was the brother of a friend of mine who worked as a manager for a company which operated the cafeteria at a major university. (Let's refer to the brother, in other words the restaurant manager, as X.)

Anyway, X told me that the employees were required to work many more hours than they actually got paid. In other words if they got paid for twenty hours, they were then required to work at least thirty hours to avoid being fired.

And then there was the restaurant that a woman I dated for a few months worked at and in which the manager demanded each of the waitresses show up approx. forty five minutes early, AND UNPAID, to get things set up (the manager referred to it as side work) before actually beginning to wait on tables.

And I could give tons more examples, and not just related to the food service business but also to plenty of other businesses. In other words there are plenty of laws out there, but they are enforced only occasionally, and a lot of business owners operate on the correct assumption that they will probably be able to get away with breaking the law.